Saturday, July 13, 2019

The GCP or Google Cloud Platform is a slightly late entrant in the world of public cloud computing but it has completely changed the public cloud landscape in the last few years, particularly the monopoly of AWS on Cloud has been challenged. It's still neither the most popular public cloud platform like Amazon Web Services, nor the darling of corporate world like Microsoft Azure but its Performance, Tools, and innovation of Google is attracting more and more companies on Google Cloud Platform, particularly in the areas of Big Data and Machine Learning. With tools like Bigtable, BigQuery, and libraries like TensorFlow, Google Cloud Platform is quickly becoming the go-to platform for Machine learning innovations. Because of all these, there is an increased demand for Cloud experts who are familiar with GCP and Google Cloud Platform concepts and tools.
Unfortunately or fortunately, currently, there is a lot of shortage with developer knowing Google Cloud Products like Bigtable, BigQuery, Google Compute Engine, etc. Similarly, If you look for a certified Google Cloud Architects, you will find one or two in your network, compared to a handful of AWS architects.

This popularity of Google Cloud Platform and shortage of skilled GCP developer means its perfect time to learn Cloud Computing and Google Cloud Platform, especially if you are looking to make a career in Cloud Computing.

On top of that currently, Google is currently offering $300 free credit which means there won't be a better time to learn Google Cloud Platform than now. So, how do we start? Well, there is no better way to learn Google Cloud than joining some of the best Google Cloud online courses on Coursera and Udemy which is offered by Google Cloud itself like Developing Applications with Google Cloud Platform Specializationon Coursera.

You can also use these courses to prepare for Google Cloud Associate and Professional Certifications like Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer and Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect, Professional Data Engineer, and Professional Cloud Developer.

5 of Best Online Training Courses to Learn Google Cloud Platform

Here are some of the best online courses to learn the Google Cloud Platform or GCP. In these courses, you will not only learn about concepts and technologies that make up the Google cloud world, but also understand what Google's cloud has to offer for DevOps, Developers, and Machine Learning enthusiasts.

Some of the courses will also help you to prepare for Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer certification exam like the second course in the list is by Ryan Kroonenburg, who is also the author of best selling AWS Certifications course like this AWS Solution Architect course.

I have also included some of the best Google Cloud courses from Coursera, particularly a Specialization which will not only teach you how to design, develop, and deploy Apps on GCP. but also provides lots of hands-on labs to practice with Google Cloud components and services, which will eventually help you to build secure, scalable, and intelligent cloud-native applications.

Without any further ado, here is my list of best courses to learn Google Cloud Platform online:

In this course, you will not only learn about GCP fundamentals like Compute Engine and App Engine but also about their Big Data and Machine learning tools like BigQuery, Bigtable, DataProc, Datalab, TensorFlow and Hadoop clusters.

I highly recommend this course for beginners who wants to learn about Google Cloud Platforms as well as people who want to prepare for Google Data Engineer and Google Cloud experts platform.

Both instructors are very knowledgeable and have strong experience in Google big Data technologies which reflect in this course. They are also from Google itself and had the first-hand experience of these technologies, which makes this course even more interesting.

Talking about social proof this course has already taught Google Cloud Fundemantsl to well over 20,000 students and have on average 4.2 ratings from close to 3,110 rating participants, which speaks volume about its quality.

2. Developing Applications with Google Cloud Platform Specialization
This is one of the most complete online resources to learn the Google Cloud Platform. This Coursera specialization is a collection of 4 online courses which will teach you how to design, develop, and deploy applications that seamlessly integrate components from the Google Cloud Platform.

The course is very hands-on and thorough on explanation. You will learn key GPC concepts like compute engine, cloud storage, dataflow, etc to develop a scalable and intelligent cloud-native application.

The best part of this specialization is that the courses are offered by Google Cloud Training itself. I have taken this course and vouch for the quality of them. They are just too good on both content and delivery.

It would take approx 1 month to complete if you can spend 14 hours/week, but the course is completely online and you can go on your own schedule. The course is also available in French, Portuguese, German, Spanish, and Japanese apart from English.

3. Google Certified Associate Cloud Engineer Certification
Ok, let me tell you that this is probably the best online training course to pass the prestigious Google Certified Associate Cloud Engineer and Architect exam, not just for content but also for presentation and delivery.

The cloud guru Ryan Kroonenburg is one of the authority when it comes to cloud and having gone through his AWS Architect certification course, I have become a big fan of him. Even though this course is not taught by him but Mattias Andersson, the quality remains the same.

The course is actually a bundle of three-course - an Introduction to Google Cloud Platform, Google Certified Cloud Data Engineer course and Kubernetes deep dive by Nigel Poulton, which is an important topic for Google Cloud certifications.

This means its also an excellent course to learn about Google's cloud offering for beginners or anyone who want to learn GCP. The course also includes 2 practice tests to prepare you will well for Google's Associate Cloud Engineer certification exam.

4. Introduction to Google Cloud By Lynn Langit
This is one of the best introductory course on Google Cloud Platform or GCP for programmers and architects who want to move into the Google cloud. In this course, Google Developer Expert Lynn Langit introduces you to Google's Cloud technologies and provides an overview of what is possible with Google clouds.

By the end of the course, you’ll know and understand about essential Google cloud services like Google App Engine, Google Compute Engine and more into your organization.

No Google cloud knowledge is required, but a lot will be imparted. This course is aimed at developers and business decision-makers and is actionable for executives as well. It also includes a 'Hello World' GAE demo using Eclipse (Java) which makes it ideal for Java developer who wants to learn about Google Cloud platform.

If you already have a Pluralsight membership then this is a great introductory course about GCP. If you don't have a membership then you can either subscribe, it cost around $29 per month or $299 per annum or take this course for free by signing their 10-day free trial.

Like the first specialization, this one is also offered by Google Cloud which makes it kind of official resource to learn Machine learning for Google Cloud Platform.

The Specialization is a collection of following 5 courses
- How Google does Machine Learning
- Launching into Machine Learning
- Intro to TensorFlow
- Feature Engineering, and
- Art and Science of Machine Learning

All courses are 100% online which means you can learn on your own schedule. In general, it takes 1 month to complete this specialization given you spent around 15 hours/week but you can go as per your convenience.

The course is also available in English, French, Portuguese, Brazilian, German, Spanish, and Japanese. The online labs are provided by Qwiklabs which makes working with GCP really pleasant.

You can start with whichever course you want but you need to finish all lectures and assignments a certification will be awarded to you which you can put on your LinkedIn profile or your CV.

That's all about some of the best courses to learn Google Cloud Platform or GCP. I have also included some course to prepare for Google Certified Associate Cloud Engineer Certification which is another great way to learn Google Cloud Platform and get a certificate for your skill. Something which you can put in your resume and LinkedIn profile. This is not really a big list as I am also learning Google Cloud, so if you have a course which should be in this list or something I should take a look, feel free to suggest in comments.

Other Certification Resources for IT Professionals and Java Programmers